Homebrew Pixie Species Details

"Petal gowns and acorn caps are so last summer!"

— Rivergleam, pixie fashionista

 Standing barely a foot tall, Pixies resemble diminutive elves with gossamer wings like those of dragonflies or butterflies, bright as the clear dawn and as luminous as the full moonrise.

Small Fey Folk

Curious as cats and shy as deer, Pixies go where they please. They like to spy on other creatures and can barely contain their excitement around them. The urge to introduce themselves and stroke up a friendship is almost overwhelming; only a Pixie's fear of being captured or attacked stays its hand. Those who wander through a Pixie's glade might never see the creature, yet hear the occasional giggle, gasp, or sigh.

Pixies array themselves like princes and princesses of the Fey, wearing flowing gowns and doublets of silk that sparkle like moonlight on a pond. Some dress in acorns, leaves, bark, and the pelts of tiny woodland beasts. They take great pride in their regalia and beam with joy when they are complimented on their ensembles.

Magical Faerie Folk

With their innate power of invisibility, pixies rarely appear unless they wish to be seen. In the Feywild and on the Material Plane, pixies etch patterns of frost on winter ponds and rouse buds in springtime. They cause flowers to sparkle with summer dew, and color leaves with the blazing hues of autumn.

Pixie Dust

When pixies fly visibly, a shower of sparkling dust follows in their wake like the glittering trail of a shooting star. A mere sprinkle of pixie dust is said to be able to grant the power of flight, confuse a creature hopelessly, or send foes into a magical slumber. Only pixies can use their dust to its full potential, but these fey are constantly sought out by mages and monsters seeking to study or master their power.

Tiny Tricksters

Pixies love nothing more than to play tricks and pull pranks on each other. Usual pranks can range from pulling chairs out from under someone to purposely leading people into potentially dangerous situations. Pixies don't often consider this to be spiteful, instead seeing it as playfully adding excitement to the lives of those who would otherwise lead boring, monotonous lives. In pixie culture, an elaborate prank is considered a compliment. It is bad form to be angered at such displays.

A pixie's prank can have an entirely different meaning if performed on a different race. Having heard the stories of wizards capturing, torturing, and bribing pixies to obtain possession of their pixie dust, pixies are incredibly cautious around strangers. The shy race studies visitors from afar to gauge their temperament or play harmless tricks on them to measure their reactions. For example, pixies might tie a dwarf's boot together, create illusions of strange creatures or treasures, or use dancing lights to lead interlopers astray. If the visitors respond with hostility, the pixies give them a wide berth. If the visitors are good-natured, the pixies are likely to be emboldened and more friendly. The fey might even emerge and offer to guide their "guests" along with a safe route or invite them to a tiny yet satisfying feast prepared in their honor.

Opposed to Violence

Unlike their fey cousins, the sprites, most pixies abhor weapons and would sooner flee than get into a physical altercation with an enemy.

Bound in Friendship

Pixie magic is based on lighthearted pranks and laughter. This magic is part of the very being of a pixie, and such affects their relationships in profound ways. A friendship for a pixie is often a magical connection. Between two pixies, this is a mutual mingling of their innate magics, and it forms bonds that last for centuries.

Sometimes, a pixie will bond with a mortal. In this case, a friendship is formed that goes beyond merely a mutual understanding or shared interests. Such a bound pixie will often stick by that person's side until they pass of old age. If the bond is strong enough, it may weaken pixies physically, shortening their lifespan to that of their friend's. For example: upon bonding with a dwarf, a pixie would only have 350 years left of life. If that dwarf were to fall ill, the pixie would immediately become exhausted until the dwarf's illness is cured.

BONDED CHARACTERS

If you want your character to bind in friendship to another character, you must first get permission from the DM and the other player, assuming you're bonding to a PC. If you do so, you should make sure to take that character as part of your Bond personality trait.

At your DM's discretion, you and your bonded friend may share an empathetic link, allowing you both to communicate empathetically at a range of 60ft. Empathetic communication is less precise than telepathic communication, allowing big ideas to be communicated via emotional states. You would know that your friend is in danger, but not exactly what presents that danger, for example.

Pixies as Adventurers

As an adventurer, you are expected to face many threats, and such encounters will usually require violence to resolve. Think about why you, as a pixie, have chosen this path of necessary violence that few of your brothers and sisters have taken before. Was there a threat to your family that you were forced to confront? Has your curiosity about the world led you to partake in adventures that help you explore it? Are you simply and inscrutably a break in the mold?

Pixie Names

Traditional pixie names are no more than a combination of two pleasant-sounding nouns. It is sometimes impossible to distinguish a male pixie from a female by name alone if the pixie is given a traditional name, though some trends and patterns can be observed (for instance, names with "sun" are usually masculine and names with "moon" are usually feminine). Pixies tend not to place as much emphasis on masculinity or femininity as most other races, and as such, a pixie parent usually names his/her child with whatever name seems best, regardless of gender. Most pixie communities have no concept of surnames. Pixies will sometimes name their children after the non-pixie wanderers or adventurers that they come across. Though they favor names that sound whimsical, it isn't unheard of for a pixie to be named along the lines of Kildrak or Doug.

Traditional: Ambergrass, Beetlesong, Cedarflower, Feathercloud, Frostwing, Goldspring, Honeystar, Jellybeam, Moondrop, Oakwind, Silverbell, Snowmist, Sugardust, Sundew, Willowkiss

Male: Alven, Amnon, Ander, Cedric, Flint, Gimble, Ivellios, Lindal, Mival, Patrin, Romero, Skamos, Soveliss, Warryn, Wellby

Female: Amber, Arveene, Bai, Criella, Diesa, Ellywick, Farideh, Jasmal, Kithri, Meriele, Minna, Xanaphia, Yua

Pixie Traits

Your Fey heritage manifests in a variety of traits, some common with other Fey races.

Ability Score Increase

Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and Charisma score increases by 1.

Age

Pixies do not age as normal races do, and after reaching maturity do not die except from wound or disease.

Alignment

Natural tricksters, with the simple desires for freedom and fun, Pixies are almost always Chaotic.

Size

Your height is usually between 6 inches and 1 foot tall. A typical pixie weighs about 1 to 4 lbs. Your size is Tiny.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 15ft.

Darkvision

Living mostly outdoors and outside of traditional lighting, you have superior vision in dark or dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if you were in bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of bray.

Fey Ancestry

You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep. You are a Fey creature for all intents and purposes with regards to effects and spells.

Exposed Wings

Whenever a pixie is the target of a critical hit, or takes its maximum hit points in damage from a single damage source, you must make a Dexterity saving throw against DC 13. On a fail, the attack and damage cuts your wings off, removing your hovering and potential flying ability. Due to your natural Pixie magic, your wings will regrow over the course of a long rest.

Invisibility

Pixies have the natural ability to make themselves Invisible as if they cast the Invisibility spell on themselves. Once you use this feat, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.

Hover

You can hover up to 5 feet from the ground.

Fight or Flight

Due to adventuring Pixies adopting the use of weapons, armor, spell books and carrying everything with them, their natural flight is limited. Expanding and retracting your wings takes one bonus action, but you gain 30 feet hovering movement speed. Attempting to hover for extended periods of time, over 10 minutes, or flying off high enough where a medium sized creature could not reach without the fly spell, can lead to you gaining levels of exhaustion.

Diminutive Stature

As a tiny creature, some of the normal rules of adventuring for small and medium creatures need to change slightly to reflect how much smaller you are.

Food and Water

Page 111 of the Dungeon Master's Guide lists how much food and water a creature needs per day based on their size. A tiny creature needs 1/4 pounds of food and 1/4 gallons of water per day.

Grappling and Shoving

The target of your grapple or shove must be no larger than one size larger than you. Tiny creatures can only shove and grapple Small or smaller creatures.

Lifting and Carrying

The rules listed below are only for Tiny creatures. See page 176 of the Player's Handbook  for complete rules on how to handle lifting and carrying.

Carrying Capacity: Your carrying capacity is your Strength score multiplied by 7.5. This is the weight (in pounds) that you can carry.

Push, Drag, or Lift: You can push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to twice your carrying capacity (or 15 times your Strength score). While pushing or dragging weight in excess of your carrying capacity, your speed drops to 5 feet.

Maps and Movement

A tiny creature's space is a 2.5-by-2.5 square. Four creatures of Tiny size can fit in a 5-foot square. You can move through a hostile creature's space only if the creature is at least two sizes larger than you (size Medium for Tiny creatures). Remember that another creature's space is difficult terrain for you.

A creature can squeeze through a space that is large enough for a creature one size smaller than it. The Player's Handbook doesn't mention the size of a space a Tiny creature could squeeze through, but a Tiny creature could reasonably squeeze through a six-inch opening. See page 192 for the penalties for squeezing.

Mounted Combat

A willing creature that is Small or larger and has the appropriate anatomy can serve as a mount for a Tiny creature. See page 198 of the Player's Handbook for the complete rules on mounted combat.

Armor and Clothes

Armor and clothing must be made specifically for Tiny characters, though there is a considerable reduction in raw materials needed to cover a Tiny creature. The cost for armor and clothes made for a Tiny character is 3/4 of the normal price, and the weight is 1/4 of the normal weight.

At the DM's discretion, you may also be able to purchase or find similarly scaled down items, such as backpacks and bedrolls fit for Tiny creatures.

Shrinking

If an effect such as the enlarge/reduce spell shrinks a Tiny creature to a smaller size category, they become 1 inch but are still considered Tiny.

Weapons

Tiny races do not benefit from the Light property, so these weapons cannot be used in the off-hand for two-weapon fighting. However, they are still a one-handed weapon. 

Versatile weapons must be wielded in two hands, and deal their basic damage rather than their versatile damage.

Tiny creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls with Two-handed weapons.

Heavy weapons cannot be wielded by a Tiny races at all.

All other one-handed weapons must be wielded in two hands.

Tiny races do not benefit from the Finesse property, unless the weapon is also light

To support Tiny PCs who wish to engage in two-weapon or ranged fighting, a new weapon property – Undersized – can be used. Any undersized weapon has it's damage dice size reduced to d1. Bonus damage from spells, poison, class abilities, and weapon enhancements function as normal.

Other

Tiny characters cannot take the Use Object action to manipulate levers and doors designed for medium or larger creatures. They can still manipulate them normally through using magic such as mage hand.

Tiny characters have disadvantage on strength ability checks, attacks, and saving throws. Additionally, if the tiny character can fly, strong winds and rain will prevent flight completely and force any airborne character to the ground.

Tiny characters have advantage on dexterity(stealth) checks when taking the hide action. All other limitations of the hide action remain the same.

Nature's Child

The children of the Fey Wild have a natural gift for the outside world. You are Proficient in the Nature skill.

Cantrips

You know the Druidcraft and Dancing Lights Cantrips.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.